The Ask
It can’t be all bad though, can it? Even on my worst days, I’ll think “it beats the alternative…not being here at all.”
When I had lost the court case, I grasped for some bit of hope, some redemption, and it was clear as day; I had kept my leg, and I had kept my life. I was going to continue pursuing life by taking on two new challenges—one physical, and one as an artist.
These are my two goals—1. I’m running the 2025 Chicago Marathon in October via a charity (World Vision), and 2. making (finally finishing, actually) a book of poems, writings, and photos. Included in that book is a really special photo art series that specifically gives insight to the near-death experience that was my stabbing (more details below).
This is my vision—that both endeavors support each other. I am raising funds and selling copies of the book simultaneously. You are welcome to donate any amount to the accounts below, and please know that any amount, big or small, is received with an immense amount of gratitude, and will help push this project along. In order to purchase the book I’m creating, I’m asking for a minimum $100 donation. Please note - you do not HAVE TO purchase a book - you can donate any amount to the fundraising efforts regardless of if you want to buy a book or not.
These donations support the World Vision charity, they support my training, healing, and running, and they support the launch of my very first art project.
This is my ask—If you've been encouraged or inspired by my story, if you appreciate my experience, if you want to be part of helping those in need, if you want to support my run and my art, this is the place to do it. There are two ways to donate:
Under the “Chicago Marathon - October 2025” (below) header, you’ll find a link to donate directly to World Vision via my profile towards my fundraising goal of $3,000. If this goal is already met, please consider donating via the Venmo, PayPal, Zelle info below.
If you look under the “Sober - A Book of Poems, Writings, and Photos” (below), you’ll see donation/payment info below. These donations will help facilitate all of the costs of developing, printing, shipping the books. Book orders #7, #19, and #25 will be slightly different and extra special ;)(Any extra donations, even if you don’t want to purchase a book, will likely go to PT appointments, new running sneakers, a sleep study, and everything else I was hoping to address with a positive jury verdict).
If you’ve purchased a book via donation to either account (World Vision or direct donation), please send me a copy of your receipt to confirm. You can reach me at denis@littlebuddyguy.com (along with your shipping address and any additional info).
If you would like to sponsor the project or creation of the book in other ways, feel free to reach out and drop me a line via (the same) email.
2025 Chicago Marathon x Book Release
Chicago Marathon - October 2025
I signed up for the 2025 Chicago Marathon via a charity, and will be fundraising to help support those in need of food and clean water.
I hate running (if it’s not chasing a ball or a disc), I’ve never run a marathon, I was late for signing up and most of the spots were closed - the reasons TO NOT run the marathon pile on. My achilles is nagging me, my lower back hurts, good sleep is still hard. But I’m alive, and my legs have been good to me. I’m gonna run, and feel every ounce of blood coursing through my veins, every ache and pain in my body, every muscle fiber twitch. We owe it to ourselves to do hard things, and laugh and cry through it all.
“Sober” - A Book of Poems, Writings, and Photos
I’m making an art book, and I’d love to share it with you. You can donate directly via Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle to further help support the creation of this project. If you’d like to support via check, ACH, or a briefcase full of cash, I can facilitate that as well—just reach out to me.
PayPal and Zelle info - Zenchenko8@gmail.com
After my stabbing, life got messy. I moved to New York to continue the momentum of a growing career as a Commercial Film Producer…in February of 2020. In late 2020, as the world changed, a dear friend opened up his cottage to me, and I retreated from the world—from social media, from work, from hangouts, from every day life.
During that time, I simplified, got healthier, tried to heal. During that time, I wrote, a lot. I started to open up about things that had been on my mind for a long time, things that I had kept private or wrestled with myself. Eventually, I made a prototype of a book—it had poems, writings, photos I had taken.
The book is very special to me. Most of the writings are not actually about the stabbing, rather, about so much of what I started being honest about after I realized that we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. It’s an undoing of the very high guard I had built—it’s honest, it’s vulnerable, it’s heavy. It’s one of the few times I felt like I was being purely transparent about how I felt.
It also contains an extremely special photo series I had developed. Years in the making, inspired by some mix of “ESPN’s - The Body Issue”, a presentation I saw from Director Sam Cannon, and the style of photography that inspires me, and made possible with dear friends and industry peers Evan Bourcier and Dan Peck, we shot a photo series that takes an intimate, yet intense look at the human body. It’s not salacious or explicit, but it does push the boundaries of comfort.
The photo series was a cathartic attempt to put into the light what weighed so heavily on me—the fear, the shame, the burden, the 8 inch scar on the inside of my groin, intimately tucked away from the world but seared into my body and my mind.
The series aims to strip away everything we hold so tightfistedly, put so much emphasis and importance on. It is an unburdening of the mind and the body, throwing off that which often artificially keeps us down from saying the things we mean, doing the things we aspire to. It follows the journey of building strength, comfort, and grounding in one’s body, and subsequently one’s mind, by way of the harrowing experience that is a violent, sudden, near-death event.
It’s a reckoning, and a release. I hope it means something to you.
Though my near-death stabbing and the implications of it will forever be a part of me and my story, onward and upward in the continual hope in my heart. For my mom, who gave up so much to raise me, for my brother, who held my hand at what felt like the end, for my dear friends, some of who have suffered more and complained less, for the 2nd chance I was given that my friend Jackson wasn’t that same year. For a belief that things will one day be made right, and that we are made for a purpose, and that we can lead with love and hope in a broken world.
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”